Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) is responsible for Carleton, Lanark, Renfrew, Prescott and Russell Counties. Our mission is “To encourage, assist and bring together all those interested in the pursuit of family history.” If you want to discover more about your family origins, or how and where to locate information about your ancestors, our members will be there to help you.

Contributors

29 May 2014

What's In It For Me?

Many
of you are aware that one of my other hobbies is model railroading. I belong to
the National Model Railroading Association (NMRA) and have found that they are experiencing
a number of the same issues as we are in the genealogy hobby. Below is a
message from a recent issue of the NMRA Magazine that I feel reflects the
situation in the Ontario Genealogical Society and genealogy in general:

One of the unfortunate things about our
current society is a "what's in it for me?"attitude. It's too bad, be­cause
some of the first to feel the effects are non­profit organizations. Obviously,
the NMRA is included in that group. Even PBS and NPR have to give away coffee
mugs and DVDs just to get people to support their work.

Frankly, there's not a whole lot you can say
to convince folks that support­ing the organization that supports the hobby
that's given them so many hours of pleasure is worthwhile. If you talk to
anyone who's an NMRA supporter, you quickly find out that they're the people
who are giving back to the hobby rather than just taking from it. They're the
people involved in Divisions and Regions, organizing events that everyone can
enjoy, putting together clinics and presenta­tions that help everyone else,
planning get-togethers. They're the people who are helping others get a lot out
of model railroading. The folks who just suck it all in and don't pass it on
are usually the first to leave, claiming they're not getting anything for their
money.

The bottom line really is, if the folks who
are leaving the NMRA don't see the value in the friendships they've made, in
the informa­tion they've learned, in the good times they've had socializing
with others in your Division, then nothing anyone can say will sway them. And
even if we gave away free coffee mugs with memberships, I'm sure folks like
that would complain that "all I get is this lousy coffee mug?"

Rest assured that after all the naysayers
have gone, the group that will be left will be the people who really do care
about the hobby and each other!